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I may try to run a squad of bikes as melee instead of tank hunters. Since they can't take anything special for CC except the champion, I was thinking of doing:

Squad of 5x Bikers
Mark of Slaanesh with IoE
2x Flamer
Champ with Combi-Plasma and Power Fist

Now I am not sure if 5 is enough or should I try going higher say 8 or 10

Hammer of wrath into a mc or the rear of a tank is the most melee you will do with them.

Ive tried running squads of melee bikes. They suck. Bikes *seem* really cheap, but by the time you've kitted them out with special weapons, something for the champion, marks of nurgle or slaanesh w/IOE you're looking at more than 200 points for a small unit wearing power armour with one wound each... they're just too fragile for what you pay for. If you want fast melee do spawn. Theyre cheaper and better.

 somecallmeJack wrote:
Ive tried running squads of melee bikes. They suck. Bikes *seem* really cheap, but by the time you've kitted them out with special weapons, something for the champion, marks of nurgle or slaanesh w/IOE you're looking at more than 200 points for a small unit wearing power armour with one wound each... they're just too fragile for what you pay for. If you want fast melee do spawn. Theyre cheaper and better.

I can't agree with you more. These are pretty much my exact thoughts. When the codex came out I thought bikes would rock. After playing a few games I realized they are completely outclassed by spawn.
If you're running a juggerlord, run unmarked spawn.
For anything else, buy mark of nurgle.

I think Spawn are better in close combat, sure. But there's benefits to the bikes, you just gotta play smart with them. Its silly to spend a bunch of points on any unit in the game right now that's supposed to be in melee. A good portion of the time, they just need to be in combat to be effective. Bikers have the hidden bonus of the turbo boost, allowing them to get somewhere much faster than Spawn. additionally, they can shoot and have access to a pretty rock solid save (cover AND armor, invisibility for the 2+!)

I've had experience running either and both and think that doing a split of Spawn/Bikes with a Heldrake is the way to do melee in Chaos. Put your Lords or Sorcerers on Bikes and tag them with the most appropriate unit for that particular game.

Example! I rolled Endurance on my Sorcerer the other game, and he also got the "Shrouded" gift from the boon table. He was a perfect fit to lead my spawn, giving them a 5+ shrouding and 5+ FNP with IWND. They were 5 T6 killing machines. My Lord rode with my Bikers and was able to use his burning brand in conjuction with the rest of my bikers bolters and special weapons to knock down targets of interest before he split off to knock off some heads. Just my experience.

 Brymm wrote:
I think Spawn are better in close combat, sure. But there's benefits to the bikes, you just gotta play smart with them. Its silly to spend a bunch of points on any unit in the game right now that's supposed to be in melee. A good portion of the time, they just need to be in combat to be effective. Bikers have the hidden bonus of the turbo boost, allowing them to get somewhere much faster than Spawn. additionally, they can shoot and have access to a pretty rock solid save (cover AND armor, invisibility for the 2+!)

I've had experience running either and both and think that doing a split of Spawn/Bikes with a Heldrake is the way to do melee in Chaos. Put your Lords or Sorcerers on Bikes and tag them with the most appropriate unit for that particular game.

Example! I rolled Endurance on my Sorcerer the other game, and he also got the "Shrouded" gift from the boon table. He was a perfect fit to lead my spawn, giving them a 5+ shrouding and 5+ FNP with IWND. They were 5 T6 killing machines. My Lord rode with my Bikers and was able to use his burning brand in conjuction with the rest of my bikers bolters and special weapons to knock down targets of interest before he split off to knock off some heads. Just my experience.

I know what you're saying, I've found the only way Ive been able to do consistently effective assault lists with chaos is, as you say bikes, spawn & drakes, but the bikes are always outperformed by the spawn.

I really *wanted* to like bikes, I converted up a load of thousand sons riding discs for counts as bikes (they were based correctly). The problem is that you *have* to pay if you want them to actually get into assault, either for FNP from IOE or MoN for T6. If you keep 'em cheap a strong breeze will remove them from the table, and even if you do blow all those points beefing them up, they just don't hit hard enough when they get there... Plus, I dont think you can assault out of turbo boost, so you're essentially rushing halfway across the board to hope whatever cover you can find protects you from all the enemy's now in range special weapons. At least with spawn you have enough wounds to take the shots that actually come your way.

Now in a 2k game I take double force org & take 4 units of spawn & 2 drakes. Add in deep striking oblits & a flying black mace prince & you have a really quick backbone to your army that is in your opponents face from the early part of the game. Most people panic and their target priority goes right out the window.

Always play a JuggerAxelord with a 5Bike squadron, MoK, 2 Meltas and IoW, with a Maulerfiend to cover them and hitting things like big transports so that they can charge the content.

Always worked, at Worst they get wiped out, but my Lord is allready in CC and so he does his job, and in most cases their 4 S5 A per guy make some enough kills to overrun the ennemy unit .

I use MoK bikes with an AoBF lord as well, and while they compete with spawn (which I also use), the bikes have always performed decently, but there's a few benchmarks you need to hit.

-They need a power-weapon IC with them. Either a lord and a sorc, because otherwise they just dont have the damage output over multiple turns.

-They need to be in a pretty large unit (I always use 7+), otherwise they just don't have the bodies to last.

-For melee, I think MoK and Wrath Icon are the best. Though slannesh and nurgle will give them survivability, their main weakness as a melee unit is their hitting power. Even with FNP or T6, they're always going to get whittled down anyways. And once the unit is down to 2 or 3 models, their killing power is negligible. Khorne a least ups their damage output to respectable levels, and even a few models can still steamroll weaker units.

-there are benefits to bikes over spawn, (which is why I use both), but you need to invest a little more into them to hit critical mass. Having a champion is nice, shooting is nice, massive area coverage is nice, armour/cover is nice, and turbo boosting is very valuable for a turn 2 assault (pretty much guaranteed with wrath icon).

-Like any melee unit, they really really need a complimentary list built around them. Just having a unit of assault bikes will get them targeted and wiped pretty fast. I run spawn, bikes, hounds, maulerfiends, and deepstriking daemons so that there is ALWAYS at least 3 or 4 units in the enemy's face.

Generally how my 7-10 man biker unit plays out is:
-turn 1, boost forward to prep for assault, and fan out to give cover to units behind them (spawn, fiends, etc)
-turn 2, slam into big enemy unit and throw out a zillion S5 attacks and chaos lord butchers their warlord, or guts the unit.
-turn 3, Bikes win, but their unit is usually pretty mauled from fighting/shooting. Break chaos lord off to go cause trouble by himself, while the still dangerous bikers switch into harassment mode and go chasing backfield units.
-turn 4-5-6-7, bikes are usually wiped out, but have had a fun time zipping around the field killing things. Almost always make their points back and then some.

A 5 man squad is going to die too quickly to be useful in cc.

I run a 10 man biker squad (and occasionally 2 of them in a chaos bikerwing list.) No special weapons, just melta bombs on the champ, MoS, IoE, and a CL / Sorcerer on a bike beside them.

It's actually pretty hard to kill 10 turbo-boosting bikers before they can assault. When they attack at I5, they do tend to take out most things very quickly. I just think of them as extra attacks / wounds for the HQ unit.

While I also love spawn, I don't agree with the comments about them being that much better than bikers. I would say it's even between the two and leave it at that.

I was just looking at the entry for Bikers, and I notice it says they are equipped with Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons. Do they charge with 3 attacks base or am I missing a rule somewhere about 'holding on to the handlebars' so only using one of those weapons in assault?

I will also say that having run 20 bikers as both shooti & melee, the melee option of squads of bikers is extremely weak... Pathetic in a lot of cases.... they simply cannot perform as well as you would need them to. T6 is Nurgle Bikers are best used as shooti and are the only real option.

Plasma bikers squads of 7 with a Champion who only has a Combi-Plasma or Melta. That's it. If they get caught, expect them to die. Otherwise, shoot and survive!

My thing is that while bikes can work, I have never ever had spawn not accomplish what I wanted them to do. My spawn have literally never failed to perform amazingly, which is something I really can't say about any other unit. I mean, at the very worst they have 3 S5 attacks at the charge.

I like nurgle bikes in a big game 2-3k. Less than that, spawn are the way to go. That being said, my bikes rarely do anything other than tank small arms fire or go tarpit a melee unit. For example, in a recent game I needed to hold off a max squad of ard Boyz to save an objective. From turn 1 to 4 those bikers kept away a much larger scoring unit and ground it down. I don't know if spawn could do that on their own. T6 really removes attacks. Granted, you won't always play orks, but still.

herpguy wrote:
My thing is that while bikes can work, I have never ever had spawn not accomplish what I wanted them to do. My spawn have literally never failed to perform amazingly, which is something I really can't say about any other unit. I mean, at the very worst they have 3 S5 attacks at the charge.

This. As others have pointed out, sure bikes *can* be made to work, with a huge unit & hefty points investment, but spawn *always* work, cheaply and with minimal effort.

herpguy wrote:
My thing is that while bikes can work, I have never ever had spawn not accomplish what I wanted them to do. My spawn have literally never failed to perform amazingly, which is something I really can't say about any other unit. I mean, at the very worst they have 3 S5 attacks at the charge.

Yeah, I know what you are saying. I used to run a Tide of Spawn list in 5th edition where I would field 33 spawn at 1750 points and I always liked how they had no save but would never go down.

That said, spawn hit at I3. MoS bikers hit at I5 and have FNP with the IoE. I like assaulting a large unit and getting it down to a small unit before it can strike back. Spawn can't do that, and it's important when fighting MEQ and Eldar.

The other thing about that FNP is it means I take 33% fewer wounds on average. That makes a big difference against Tau. I have lost squads of 5 spawn to shooting attacks before, but not 10 bikers.

But who doesn't like seeing a fully painted hounds of huron formation

 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:
I was just looking at the entry for Bikers, and I notice it says they are equipped with Bolt Pistols and Close Combat Weapons. Do they charge with 3 attacks base or am I missing a rule somewhere about 'holding on to the handlebars' so only using one of those weapons in assault?

This was something only in 3rd and 4th Eds, bikes where limited to one weapon, because they had to steer the bike;

The only two bikes that could have 2 attacks, where White Scars bikes, because they've learned to steer with their knees, and chaos Bikes, because the bikes where covered with spikes and blades, and thus had +1A.

Since 5th Ed, bikes arn't limited with this, if they have 2 CCW, they get +1A.

So yeah MoK bikes gets 4A when assaulting.